On February 25, 1262, Urban renewed Henry’s absolution from his oath in a bull which was at once promulgated in England.  Montfort then came back from abroad and rallied the baronial party.  In January, 1263, Henry once more confirmed the Provisions, and peace seemed restored.  The death of Richard of Gloucester during 1262 increased Montfort’s power.  His son, the young Earl Gilbert, was Simon’s devoted disciple, but he was still a minor and the custody of his lands was handed over to the Earl of Hereford.  Montfort’s personal charm succeeded in like fashion in winning over Henry of Almaine.

The events of 1263 are as bewildering and as indecisive as those of the two previous years.  Amidst the confusion of details and the violent clashing of personal and territorial interests, a few main principles can be discerned.  First of all the royalist party was becoming decidedly stronger, and fresh secessions of the barons constantly strengthened its ranks.  Conspicuous among these were the lords of the march of Wales, who in 1258 had been almost as one man on the side of the opposition, but who by the end of 1263 had with almost equal unanimity rallied to the crown.[1] The causes of this change of front are to be found partly in public and partly in personal reasons.  In 1258 Henry III., like Charles I. in 1640, had alienated every class of his subjects, and was therefore entirely at the mercy of his enemies.  By 1263 his concessions had procured for him a following, so that he now stood in the same position as Charles after his concessions to the Long Parliament made it possible for him to begin the Civil War in 1642.  A new royalist party was growing up with a wider policy and greater efficiency than the old coterie of courtiers and aliens.  Of this new party Edward was the soul.  He had dissociated himself from Earl Simon, but he carried into his father’s camp something of Simon’s breadth of vision and force of will.  He set to work to win over individually the remnant that adhered to Leicester.  What persuasion and policy could not effect was accomplished by bribes and promises.  Edward won over the Earl of Hereford, whose importance was doubled by his custody of the Gloucester lands, the ex-justiciar Roger Bigod, and above all Roger Mortimer.

[1] On this, and the whole marcher and Welsh aspect of the period, 1258-1267, see my essay on Wales and the March during the Barons’ Wars in Owens College Historical Essays, pp. 76-136 (1902).

The change of policy of the marchers was partly at least brought about by their constant difficulties with the Prince of Wales.  During the period immediately succeeding the Provisions of Oxford, Llewelyn ceased to devastate the marches.  A series of truces was arranged which, if seldom well kept, at least avoided war on a grand scale.  Within Wales Llewelyn fully availed himself of the respite from English war.  Triumphant over the minor chiefs, he could reckon upon